Dori, Smile, and Amber looked at each other in blank surprise.

There was a second knock.  “Hello?”  The latch rattled.

“We’re in here!” Amber screamed, her desperate voice echoing off of the walls.  Dori flinched.  “Please, oh God, please open the door!”

“There seems to be something wedged in it.  A screwdriver or something.”

“Please, please help us!” Amber cried.

Dori sighed and tried to push herself to a sitting position.  It didn’t work.  Didn’t anyone have the slightest idea what to do about this?  “Hey, could you push the panic button?  Someone robbed the store.  There should be a white button that’ll trip the alarm and the cops will come, on the wall by the desk,”

There was a moment of silence, but they could hear someone moving around.  “Oh, yes, here it is.  I just push it?”

“Yeah.  I would just leave whatever’s stuck in the door there, or the cops will be pissed about you moving evidence.”  Pandora’s had been robbed before; Dori hadn’t been working that time, but Bill had said that the cops were uptight about their “crime scene” afterward.  Ypsilanti was a college town, and there weren’t too many armed robberies, so the cops were probably overzealous with excitement.

“Will you be okay in there?”

“No!” Amber screamed.  “Get us the fuck out of here!”

“Shut up, you fat bitch,” Smile muttered.

“Fuck you!”

“You guys, be quiet, okay?” Dori asked.  She didn’t raise her voice–yelling never did much good anyhow–but they listened to her just the same, and quit arguing.  “We’ll be okay,” she told the person outside. 

“All right,” the man said, not sounding convinced.  “Is there anything else I can do?  Is anyone hurt?”

“Nobody’s hurt too bad.”  Dori tried to think.  “Can you call the owner?  The number should be on the wall.”  She wasn’t sure if that was part of the procedure, if there was a procedure, or if the Rooneys wanted to be waked up at midnight, but if she were manager it was what she would have done.

They sat in silence that was both physically and mentally uncomfortable for several minutes.  “You shouldn’t have said all of that,” Amber whispered to Dori suddenly.  “He could be one of the robbers.  He could have come back to kill us.  Or rape us.”

“I’m sure nobody wants to rape us,” Dori muttered.  Be serious; we’re not cute.  An army of horny Cossacks wouldn’t rape us, she thought.  “There are easier and cuter pickings on campus.”

“Then they must be after me,” Smile said with an attempt at a smile.

“That I could believe.”

“Quit making fun of me,” Amber said.  “If it’s one of the robbers out there, I’ll sue you if they hurt me.”

Dori decided that it would be a good idea to never again speak to Amber unless it was absolutely necessary.  To inaugurate this plan, she didn’t respond.  Having thus taken control of her relationship with her stupidest coworker (status subject to review), she felt much better about, well, everything.

“Cops are here,” Smile said.

“How can you tell?” Dori asked.

“Two cars just pulled up.  One on each side of the building.”

“Oh, I forget, you have that weird delivery driver radar.”

“Actually you can hear cars through the wall,” Amber said.  “I heard them too.”

There was another tentative knock at the cooler door.  “Hello?  The police are here.  Looks like you folks will be out in just a moment.”

Dori didn’t bother to tell Amber that she had told her so.  She tried to give her a look to communicate the sentiment, but it failed.  It was too subtle to reach Amber, and the ranch dressing all over her face didn’t help either. 

“You won’t tell anyone else that I peed my pants, will you?” Amber asked suddenly.

Dori and Smile looked at each other.  Neither of them had even considered the potential comedic value of Amber’s incontinence under pressure.  Dori, who had no intention of, nor interest in, passing it on, said nothing.  Smile, who suddenly had every intention of telling all, said, “Don’t worry, Amber.”

Their rescuer turned out to be a man in his sixties, wearing a lumberjacky blue flannel shirt and khaki pants, and loafers that were definitely out of season for November in Michigan.  He was slender, wiry even, and his hairline had receded long ago.  He stuck around to make sure they were all okay, and even offered to call their families while the police questioned everyone.  “I have a granddaughter your age,” he told Smile and Dori while Amber told the detectives who had arrived what she’d seen.  They were sitting in the dining room awaiting their turn.  “I know I’d be worried sick if she didn’t come home from work on time.  Her mother, too.”

“I don’t think my aunt will mind,” Dori said.  “Where are you from?  You have a sort of southern accent.”  She liked sitting in the dining room and talking after the store was closed; there was something cozy and informal about the low-ceilinged room with all of the tables empty, the salad bar cleaned off, and half the lights turned out.

“I’m from New Mexico,” their rescuer said.  “Oh, Lord, where are my manners?”  He offered his hand.  “Benjamin Barrett, United States Army, retired.”

“Ismail Kazemi,” Smile said, shaking hands.

“Dori Thomasson.”  She mimicked Smile’s businesslike tone and nod, and he gave her a sideways nudge to let her know that he knew she was making fun of him.  “Oh, and the other girl is Amber.  Thanks for helping us, Mr. Barrett.”

“Do you want a pizza, man?” Smile asked.  “Our manager isn’t here, so it’ll be on the house.  You must have come here for a ‘za in the first place, right?”

“That’s very kind of you.  As it turns out, I was planning to make an order.”

Dori looked at Smile.  “I’ll make it,” he said, answering her question before she asked it.  She liked it when he did that.  “What do you want on it?”

“Just pepperoni, if you please.  If you make it too fancy the old fire-pit won’t know what to do with it,” he added, patting his belly with a chuckle.  “I’m not much of a gourmet.”

When Smile went to make the pizza, Mr. Barrett turned to Dori.  “Did you say your last name is Thomasson?”  She nodded.  “You wouldn’t happen to be related to a Peter Thomasson, would you?” he asked with a grin.

Dori laughed.  “That’s my grandfather’s name,” she said.

“From Charlotte?”

“He was from somewhere down south.  Is Charlotte in North Carolina?  My dad’s family is from there.  I never met my grandpa, he died before I was born.  He got killed–”

“In Korea,” Mr. Barrett finished.  “My God, it’s a small world,” he said.  His smile was gone and he was looking at Dori reverentially; she found it immediately unnerving.  “You must be Pete’s granddaughter.  I can’t believe it.”

“Why do you look so freaked out?”

“Your grandfather saved my life.  Saved the lives of a dozen men, and gave up his own in return.  We knew he had a little lady and a child coming back home, and we tried to find them when we got back, but…” he shrugged, seeming embarrassed.  He grasped Dori’s hand in both of his, suddenly intense.  There were tears in his eyes.  “It means a lot to me, to have met you,” he said.  “Helped you, even.  Your grandpa was a hero.  I can see now, you’ve got his eyes.”

“He had orange eyes too?”  Dori had always thought her eyes were a weird shade, a light brown that reminded her of the color of rust.  Smile said they were pretty, but she figured he was just complimenting what he could because he couldn’t seriously go on about her nose (which had been broken when she was little, and showed it) or face (which was average, and freckled in the summer) or figure (which was making the transition from heroin-chic skinny to big-hipped mid-twenties pudge without bothering to offer up a sexy curvy phase).

“Pete used to say that they were the color of North Carolina clay,” Mr. Barrett said, his voice echoing the pride of the man who’d first spoken those words to him.  “He said that the land was in him, that he had a bit of Charlotte in his soul.”

Dori thought it was funny in a noble, Fifties sort of way.  “Too funny,” she said.  “So what happened?  In the war, I mean.  What did he do?”

The cop conducting the interviews chose that time to finish up with Amber.  Smile was busy making Mr. Barrett’s pizza, so he called Dori instead.  “Miss Thomasson?  Your turn.”

“Oh, shitfuck, I have to go.  Don’t leave, okay?” she asked Mr. Barrett.  “I want to talk to you about my grandpa.”  Mr. Barrett nodded. 

The cop grilled her for almost an hour.  Dori had to tell him the whole story four times (by the third retelling, it was starting to sound dumb, like a movie she’d watched too many times, and she had to refrain from editing it to make it sound cooler).  She did her best to remember voices and heights and clothes, but really the biggest thing she remembered was that all of the guys had smelled like Murphy’s Oil Soap, which didn’t seem to make the cop happy.  Just as they were almost finished with the interview, some other cops brought Walter back.  It was a fairly noisy interruption.  Walter’s nebbishness was gone; he was cursing and proclaiming the grand revenge he would visit upon the perps, who had apparently locked him in the trunk of their car and then dumped him out in Jackson, about thirty miles west of Ypsilanti.  Walter was ready to go and do the bastards right now, if the cops would give him a gun and point him in the right direction.  It took a lot of placating to get him calmed down enough to tell his story.  Dori hung around to watch, partly because the cop who had been talking to her switched to Walter before he told her she was done, and she wasn’t sure if it was time to go or not.

As a result, by the time she was free to go it was almost three in the morning, and Mr. Barrett hadn’t stuck around.  Neither had Smile.

That was no big deal, though.  Dori was perfectly content to drive home and fall into bed.  She lived with her aunt and uncle in Wayne.  She’d been living with them since they had taken custody of her at thirteen, after the state of Michigan had decided Dori’s biological parents’ habit of sending her out to wander the trailer park while they hosted sex parties (among other random impolitenesses) did, in fact, constitute negligence.  So, Aunt Andrea and Uncle Carl had taken her in, and seemed happy to have Dori as they had no children of their own.  It was as good a life as any, Dori supposed–she was still living with them a decade later, after all.

Her plan to sleep late the next day and then call her friend Brian to go shopping for a new car was foiled at eight in the morning, by a ringing doorbell and vibrating front door.  Dori put the pillow over her head and waited for Aunt Andrea to get it, but duh, she was gone off to start whatever was on her social calendar for the day, so that plan wouldn’t work.  With a sigh, Dori rolled out of bed and shuffled in the general direction of the door.  Waking up always took a long time.

“Open the door, Miss Thomasson!” she heard someone shout as she drifted through the living room.  The front wall of the house vibrated in time with the impatient fist pounding on the door.  At least it was for her; Carl and Andrea’s last name was Miller.

There was a note taped to the television, in Aunt Andrea’s handwriting:  “Dori–we need to talk.  Carl and I think it’s time you found your own place.  Can you be home for dinner?  Let’s discuss it–Andrea”  She took the note off of the TV–ha ha, Aunt Andrea knew where she usually went for breakfast–and read it twice.

The door shook under another assault.  “Miss Thomasson!  It’s the police!”

Okay, she thought, I’m coming, dammit.  She meant to say it, but didn’t get around to it.  Dori stuffed the note into the pocket of her Sylvester and Tweety pajama bottoms and opened the door.  Squinting at the daylight, she saw suits and shoulders belonging to men substantially larger than her five-six height.  As far as she could tell, the sun was actually sitting on top of the house across the street, so that was all she could make out.  She could feel her hair standing up in disarrayed spikes, and tried to brush it down with her fingers.  “G’morning,” she said.

One of them held out something that made a soft slapping sound, then put it away.  “Dori Thomasson?  I’m Alan Braum from the Ypsilanti police department.  Would you mind coming with us, please?  We need to ask you some questions pertaining to kidney hamster M&M football pizza restaurant last night.”

She was far too sleepy to process whatever it was he had actually said.  “Okay,” she replied, nodding and rubbing her eyes.  She stepped out onto the porch.

“Oh, it’s okay, you can get dressed first,” the second tall man said apologetically.  His eyes went to her shoulders with a slight frown of concentration, and she realized she was wearing a tank top, so he could see her tattoos.  She had the evil Queen from Snow White on her left shoulder, and Cruella De Vil on the right, and their bright colors stood out against her pale skin, even though the tats were five years old.  “There’s no rush.  Do you mind if we step inside to wait?”

Dori stopped, shrugged, and went back in to put some clothes on, leaving the door open behind her.